In the match played last Saturday, at Bramcote, Notts. scored a
convincing victory by 10.5 - 5.5 (Full details attached). Though there
is little doubt that Warwickshire fielded a side much weakened by other
events in their area Notts can be encouraged by the fact that the match
was won mainly by the the players on the top 8 boards, where we only
outgraded the opposition by an average of 2.5 points. In fact we only
lost one game in the top half, winning this part of the match 6-2!!
On boards 9-16 where we outgraded the opposition by an average of 9
point per board we only won 4.5-3.5.

I must record my thanks to those who turned up to help set everything
out at the start and those who stayed behind to help with the
housework! Also my apologies to those able players I omitted to ask to
play, but trying to arrange matches for the Open side, the under 180
team and the under 100 team, as well as standing in for the captain of
the U-160 team, while being heavily involved with developing junior
chess, has not been easy. As usual YOUR Association is short of
officers. If you want to be certain of a game in future the NCA would
welcome almost anyone willing to take on the task.

For a second year Notts and Worcestershire met at Water Orton for the
final zonal round in the MCCU Under 140 contest. In many ways the match
mirrored that of 2010, in that Worcestershire had already qualified
whilst Notts needed a victory to progress. However the scenario this year
was rather different, Worcs had already won the MCCU title and Notts needed
at least a 9-7 victory to go forward as either second or third nominees so
we thought – last year Notts overhauled Worcs but this time there
was no way we could achieve this.

Anyway the match started badly for the West Midlands team when a player
failed to turn up thus giving Notts a default win. Unfortunately Ross Mackay
didn't get a game however at least he didn't have to wait for five hours to
get a lift back. Notts then managed to maintain a slight edge throughout the
match; several games were drawn; the Worcs top board overpressed and lost and
the only Notts loss on the scoresheet as the match drew to a conclusion was
on Board 9. James Kenyon beat another promising junior, I won and we collected
the full points on Boards 14 & 15. Saaras Mehan, making his debut, played a
very long game which was eventually halved with an ending of bishops of opposite
colour. The penultimate game to finish was Ray Sayer who again showed his endgame
technique to score the full point leaving Alan Kenyon's game to give Worcs their
second win of the match after a prolonged tactical battle. Final score of 10½-5½
was enough to see us through as runners-up.

MCCU Zone Final Table

Team

P

W

D

L

Games

Pts

Worcestershire

5

3

1

1

40.5

7

Notts

5

2

2

1

49.5

6

Derbyshire

5

2

2

1

42

6

Staffordshire

5

2

1

2

31.5

5

Warwickshire

5

1

2

2

39

4

Shropshire

5

1

0

4

26.5

2

The zone was very closely matched this year with twelve of the fifteen
games finishing 9-7 or closer. We play Kent 1 (SCCU 1) in a tough
starter in May.

Derbyshire III who had to play a preliminary have already been knocked
out by SCCU opponents. Hertfordshire (SCCU 3).

Nottinghamshire surrendered their Midland title in a match too close to
call which went right down to the last game again. We took an early loss on
Board 8 but after that things moved on very well.

Andy Sutton & Mick Harper scored wins and I produced a “cheapest
tactic of the week” candidate in time trouble so with nine games declared
we lead 5-4. Then suddenly Shropshire hit us with three wins; the most notable being
on Board 15 where according to everyone John Buttery missed a mate in one or possibly two.
Have you noticed how spectators can always see what the players can't? Board 10 was
to our advantage but the Salopian was able to hold a K & B versus K, N & RP easily.
It was difficult to see how Graham could have avoided this ending which was clearly drawn.
Meanwhile we were able to even things up with wins from father and son Alan & James Kenyon.
Alan was always winning but James was able to give up his knight for a KRP and then march
through his queenside pawns with the opposition bishop and king still floundering on the
king's wing. An excellent game! However back came Shropshire with a win on Board 13;
it looked as if we were winning this up to the time control but once a series of
exchanges took place we were left with an ending of mobile bishop v passive knight. So
the last game went to Shropshire.

2010 saw Notts completely unbeaten (our December match was snowed off);
so our next challenge was to see off Derbyshire, captained by Dave Dunne.
Quite what he's doing playing for them is a mystery. In a senior moment to
better the one in Match 1; this time I managed to turn up with 17 players
using the simple expedient of inviting a regular to play then omitting him
from the team sheet. I'm indebted to the player concerned for not kicking
me under the table as he should have done!

There were two Notts losses on 7 & 8; but these were quickly balanced
by wins for the University players drafted in on Boards 15& 16. It was
pretty close all the way with Mick Harper winning from an extremely complex
situation whilst I scored a rather easier victory. Unfortunately Barry
appeared to stumble into a self-mate and with three to declare the match
stood at 6½-6½. Graham Gibson stood worse for a substantial time but equalised
easily in the ending. The dreaded bishop/knight endings were well in evidence
elsewhere. Although pawns down, Christopher Kirkland had hemmed his opponent's
king, bishop and rook into a corner with his own knight and rook. The exchange
was lost and the ending of R v B was always won for us. So 8-7 to Notts.

However in a replay from last year's game, Mike Nailard was playing Vaughan
Smith and this time it was Vaughan's active rook/bishop and king against Mike's
passive rook/knight and king. Mike has advised me since that the position was
holdable but it always looked difficult over the board. So yet another draw 8-8.

Notts continued their unbeaten run by drawing with Warwickshire. At the
start of the week the Warwickshire captain told me he was “having
difficulty raising a team” so in a fit of generosity I offered to
reduce the number of boards to 15. At that time I had 14 players in place
so it wouldn't have proved too difficult to produce a full side.

Match day arrived and there were plenty of problems. Firstly I'd managed
for a second successive match to leave the clipboard with all the paperwork
at home. I therefore had to persuade Derek to tear up his scorebook (no
scoresheets) and remember what my team was! Secondly, my Board One failed to
turn in. I phoned him and he had supposedly “left a message” -
where this was I was never able to ascertain. The fact that he hasn't appeared
anywhere to play this season might indicate otherwise. I am indebted to Dorothy
Blampied who had arrived to spectate for filling in – but it was perhaps
inevitable that Warwicks were able to open the scoring on this board.

Andy Sutton and Len Morrell soon put points on the board for Notts. Newcomer
Christopher Kirkland played an excellent game and James Thomson, sat on my other
side; overwhelmed his opponent. I was losing badly but the West Midland player
got into time trouble and collapsed in a heap. Nottinghamshire lead 7½-4½ and
although two games were irrevocably lost, I hoped that we might save the
bishop v knight ending in the last game. That was until the knight forked K
& B. Warwickshire turned up rather stronger than I anticipated – they
were the only team to defeat us in 2009/10 so maybe not too bad.

At an EC meeting earlier in the season Neil Graham, bless him,
suggested that we use as many of our juniors as possible for this team.
This seemed a really good idea at the time and, because of my
involvement with Junior Chess in the county, I foolishly volunteered to
captain the team. However, it turned out later that the date of the
first match clashed with two major junior events!! The calendars of
both junior and adult chess being so full I attempted to raise a
primarily adult team, only to discover that we don't really have that
many adults graded under 100 and many of those we do have either could
not or would not play.
In the end we were forced to default 3 boards, but Warwickshire also
had to default one and we eventually lost 4-7. A big thank you from me
to all who made the journey to Oldbury, West Midlands and an especially
big thank you to Steve Swanwick of Nomads, who acted as captain on the
day.
Due to the lack of entrants in the MCCU stages both sides qualify for
the final